"If you have fond memories of The Mod Squad and or Michael, please "like" and share this link and help it go viral....Could help close a book deal!!!!!".

Thank you every body for helping out today.Much love, peace, and light always,

xo Jen

The Mod Squad is a "hippie" undercover cop show that ran on ABC from September 24, 1968, until August 23, 1973. It starred Michael Cole as Pete Cochran, Peggy Lipton as Julie Barnes, Clarence Williams III as Linc Hayes, and Tige Andrews as Captain Adam Greer. The executive producers of the series we...

TV Show: 7,620 like this

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

I was
going to begin by saying I have developed this nice friendship with a man I’ve
never actually met, but that’s not true. We met once, 40 years ago.

I was 13
years old and he was famous, an overnight sensation in Hollywood. If
you had told me then that four decades later, we’d be long-distance telephone
pals, I’d have laughed.

Michael Cole
was, as he puts it, "the white guy" on "The Mod Squad,"
which was a hip hit for ABC-TV from 1968 to 1973. Cole co-starred with Peggy
Lipton and Clarence Williams III as young toughs who avoid a jail sentence by agreeing to become
undercover cops.

Cole, who
lives in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley, grew up in Madison and gets back here once in a while. Last summer, he made an
appearance at a Monona Terrace charity event, Outdoors Without Limits. There he
spoke with Bobby Hinds, the Madison fitness entrepreneur. Hinds had been a teacher at East High,
from which Cole dropped out. "I didn’t like school," Cole said,
"but I love education."

Last year,
Cole mentioned that he’d been thinking about doing a book on his life.
"Whenever anyone brought it up before," he said, "I would say
that there are too many people still alive." Now it was time. He felt he
had some important things to say. He had been to the top and bottomed out, too.
Hinds gave him my phone number.

The first
time Cole called, last fall, I explained that I was in the middle of a book
about the late NFL star, Lyle Alzado, and couldn’t commit to another project.
But we talked, and agreed to talk again.

He called
every couple of weeks or so. Mostly, we chatted about Madison.
"You know that Thomas Wolfe line about never being able to go home
again?" he said. "I think it’s the opposite. I don’t think you ever
really leave. There’s always something beating in my heart for Madison."

He loves the
city despite having it anything but easy when he lived here. He had a mother
and brother he loved, and a father he never knew. The early years were in
Schenk’s Corners. Money was short. Cole disengaged. "My place to
hide," he said, "was along the YaharaRiver, about a half-mile from the locks. There was a little community
of people there who didn’t have any place to go."

Eventually,
with a buddy, he took off. California beckoned. Cole found his way to an acting workshop run by a
woman named Estelle Harman. She’d taught at UCLA.

When I asked
Cole about the break that led to "The Mod Squad," he began talking
about the workshop and said one day he accompanied another student to her
audition at Paramount.

"I had
never been inside a studio," he said. They read a scene from
"Picnic" for a casting director. The woman did fine, but it was Cole,
just along for the ride, who made an impression.

The casting
man brought Cole to the attention of Howard Koch, Paramount’s
head of production. Word reached Aaron Spelling, in need of a charismatic rebel
to headline "The Mod Squad."

When they
met, Cole scoffed at playing a cop. "That’s the attitude I want!"
Spelling said.

It was
January 1969, just after the show hit, that Cole and the entire "Mod
Squad" cast came to Madison for a March of Dimes fundraiser on Channel 27, the city’s ABC
affiliate. My dad was the station’s general manager, so I met everyone,
including Cole. What I remember, truly, was how nice Clarence Williams was.
Cole and Peggy Lipton seemed a little remote.

It had to be
a strange time, that first rush of stardom. Cole had started drinking in Madison at
14, and it escalated with his fame. There was an incident at an awards show in Australia. Word got around. After "Mod Squad," he did dinner
theater, but his star dimmed.

Twenty years
ago, he met Shelley, the woman he would marry and who convinced him to enter
rehab. He went to Betty Ford. "I remember standing by the serenity pond
talking with Mickey Mantle," he said.

Renewed, Cole
found roles on television’s "ER" and in the Kevin Costner film
"Mr. Brooks." He thinks there might be a place for him in Wisconsin’s fledgling film industry. "I’ve never felt more like
acting," he said.

Maybe one day
that book will happen, too. The calls come sometime after noon. "It’s Michael," he’ll say, and begin a story. He has
some good ones.

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Friends of MIchael Cole

We are a group of friends, who would like to share with others about Michael Cole better known as Pete from the famous TV show The Mod Squad.
If you would like to share in our Blog feel free to do so. We will be posting articles,pictures and other memorabilia. Become a Micahel Cole friend as he himself considers his fans !